Day 2

Good thing we bypassed Vicksburg last night because we heard that they had a lot of flash flooding around the city. In addition, there were tornado warnings in Yazoo county...which we think is north of Vicksburg somewhere. Jackson was just fine. Actually, we found out that our hotel wasn't in Jackson but Pearl, MS. Oh well, a hotel is a hotel.

We were on the road at 8:00am this morning, stopping for gas and food in Silver City, MS. Good, cheap food. As I discovered the hard way, my 100-miles butt wasn't good for 100 miles today. Everyone was very eager to stop around 75-80 miles. We topped off our fuel each time we stopped so nobody would run out anywhere and cause an extra stop.

Lunch was late in the afternoon at a McDonalds in Fort Payne...an appropriate name for most of us as we were definitely in "pain" by that point. The stop was much appreciated. We traveled about 380 miles today compared with about 440 on Monday. Tomorrow brings another 380 mile day to Huntington, WV but after that the next two days are relatively short.

Except for some construction in the eastern part of Mississippi, the road conditions were pretty good...if you don't count all the trucks that either passed us or we passed...or both at times. Most drivers are pretty courteous to our group...even waiving at times.

Just west of Fort Payne we were passed by a large group of riders heading east to Washington. And, just as we got off the highway yet another group passed us. Shortly after we got back on the interstate after eating, we passed under an overpass where about 75 people stood waiving American flags and cheering us on. There was also a large firetruck with the ladder raised and a large American flag flying. I'm sure we weren't the intended audience for their celebration but it was cool nonetheless.

One bit of remembering for me was passing over the Tombigbee and Cahaba rivers. Anyone who has lived in the Selma, AL area will recognize those names. Sharon and I spent some 10 months there and have some fond memories.

Tonight, four of us rode downtown Chattanooga to see what we could see, then ate some Mongolian BBQ at Genghis Grill...it was very good.

Tomorrow, we off again at 8:00am headed to West Virginia...and area that I'm not at all familiar with.